Something Elf
by RosieMac
Summary: 24 year-old John Connor arrives in a small town in Northern Canada, still waiting for his destiny to catch up with him. Two years after the death of his mother Sarah from cancer, once more he faces the future alone. Or does he? ** AU seasonal spin-off from Something Else **
1. 1

**_Author's Note:_**__ this seasonal tale features the Alternate Universe characters from my story __**_"Something Else"_**__ but takes a different turn into yet another alternate time line from Chapter 10 of __**_SE_**__ onwards. You don't have to have read that, but it helps. Wait... why haven't you read it yet? You'll get round to it later? Okay, you're forgiven, for now! So what gives with this story? Here's a quick ____**SPOILERY**____ summary: John Connor never properly met up with Cameron in 1999, so continued to run with his mother Sarah, who sadly passed away in December 2005. One year later, Cameron finally made her way into his life, changing it somewhat dramatically. Despite having been settled in LA for almost a year, a disagreement between them led to him once more striking out alone. The only clue he left behind was that he was heading to Canada - not enough for Cameron to trace John without drawing unwanted attention to him. In __**_Something Else_**__, John headed north for only a short time before turning back for his reconciliation with Cameron. However, what if John had indeed gone to Canada? Maybe this__...

24 year-old John Connor arrives in a small town in Northern Canada, still waiting for his destiny to catch up with him. Over two years after the death of his mother Sarah from cancer, once more he faces the future alone. _Or does he?_

**SOMETHING ELF**

_Disclaimer: I don't own these wonderful TSCC characters, just wish I did_.

**Chapter One: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).**

_**Somewhere in Canada: Monday, December 24th 2007.**_

John Connor woke with a start. It was quiet... too quiet. Grabbing his handgun from under the pillow, he leaped out of bed and made his way to the window. Cautiously he eased one of the curtains aside. The sun had risen on another day, revealing the reason for the unusual silence: a heavy blanket of snow had settled on the town overnight, covering everything as far as the eye could see in fine white powdery crystals.

As someone raised in the warmer southern climes of the American continents, he was unaware of the sound-deadening effect of heavy snowfall. The landscape had changed dramatically from that of the day previous; where it was once a host of differing shades of green and brown and gray, now it was uniformly white. The child inside him felt the urge to rush out and do _something_ in the freshly laid carpet of snowflakes. What that something was didn't matter; _anything_ would be fun.

Drawing the curtain back fully, he took in more of the vista. The front yard of the property he was currently residing in had taken on an unfamiliar air. The tree that had looked decidedly dead now appeared to be full of spring's blossom. The usually ugly metal trash can nestling by the side fence now looked like an immobile R2-D2. And wait, what was that? _A snowman? The kids from downstairs must have been up early to make that,_ he decided. But what kid wouldn't be up early on a snowy morning like this?

His journey from L.A. to this house had been a long and slow one; he'd zig-zagged across many states, all the while maintaining his northbound heading. The cheap old Volvo wagon he'd bought in Vegas had not lasted long, but at least it got him into Canada. After that it was a matter of trains, buses and finally a spot of hitch-hiking. The last was from a long-distance trucker, who'd dropped him off in the middle of town, before heading home to his own family for Christmas.

So John found himself living in this attic room, part of, yet separate from the family below. That family was Mary Watkins and her two boys, Ivan and George. Her husband was absent, working away from home; maybe he'd get home for Christmas, maybe not. Either way, they needed the money a lodger could provide.

John had overheard a conversation between the children the day before. They'd been warned by their mom, seemingly for the hundredth time, that they were forbidden from playing in the nearby forest. They talked of the hermit living there, or at least as much of the legends and rumors that they'd heard in school as they could recall. The discussion became ever more heated but ended with the older lad warning his younger sibling that the man was a notorious axe murderer, who chopped up foolish children after luring them into his den in the woods. The little boy ran screaming for his mother, who admonished her oldest son in terms that Sarah Connor would have been familiar with. _That's life_, John had mused. Pulling back from the window, he mentally congratulated the kids on their snowman-building skills.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

Having washed and dressed, John was going to pour himself a coffee in the kitchen but then thought better of it. He planned to spend Christmas Day and the following week hunting in the forest the old-fashioned way, using a longbow, though perhaps not too medieval; his bow was made from modern composite materials. This relatively silent method of killing was a skill he had learned in the jungles of South and Central America, but he had gotten rusty since those youthful endeavors. Additionally, his unfamiliarity with the frozen wastes he had abruptly relocated to meant that he had much to learn. Just as when he had been dumped in the desert to fend for himself by his bodyguard, the reprogrammed terminator calling herself Cameron Phillips, he would need his wits about him to survive. He corrected himself: now he would need all of his wits; back then he had her. Although she'd called their trip into the Californian desert a vacation, it was anything but. However, all the time he was out there he knew, at the back of his mind, that she wouldn't let him starve. She would do anything for him, so he'd always had a cushion to fall back on. When he got to brooding, which was often, he wished that he still had that support: times like when he was trying to find a tasty, healthy meal; or watching their favorite TV show; or, he admitted most reluctantly, at night. He'd become used to having her around, even with all that tension in the air. Coming-to every morning with that warmth behind him on the bed, it was kind of comforting. He'd even gotten over that thing of waking to find her looking down on him, something that once had creeped him the hell out. He was sure that it was why she laid down next to him, though she claimed to have other reasons. It reassured her, she'd said. _Like a terminator needed reassuring!_ But yeah, when he stopped being a jackass, she became easier company.

_Regret busting loose of the old ball and chain?_ he asked himself. _No! Needed to get free, rely on my own instincts, on my own resources. On myself_. She was right about needing to be prepared for the war to come though, and this was what he was doing out in the back end of beyond. _Wasn't she a resource though? No, Cameron was more than that, she was something else._..

"Crap! Let's hit the diner one more time," he decided. He pulled on a fleece and thick windbreaker, then positioned a woolen beanie on his head before venturing outside. As he stepped gingerly onto the fresh snow covering the path, his new landlady called out to him.

"Morning, John!"

He turned, to see her bearing down on him with a shovel in hand. "Hey, Mary! Wanna hand with that?"

"Do you mind?" she asked, smiling gratefully.

"Not at all," he said, taking the proffered tool. John started on the task, but after a few moments, pointed to the snowman standing like a sentry in the front yard. "Nice job the boys did there," he said.

Mary looked puzzled. "That wasn't them; they're in back building one right now. I wouldn't let them out front that early."

"Right," John said. It was his default answer: agreement, yet non-committal.

"It's probably the kids from the next street; their parents let them out all hours. I don't let the boys play with wild children like that."

"Yeah, probably right," John said, hoping it answered both of her points. "Maybe it was the postman?" he ventured.

"No, he doesn't come 'til gone nine, later this time of year," Mary replied.

"Oh," John said, shrugging. Soon he had reached the sidewalk. Mary returned to take the shovel off him, but was called back by a shout from the younger of her two sons.

"Mommy, have you got a carrot for Frosty?" he inquired in a high-pitched voice, full of excitement.

John couldn't remember being that pumped up about anything at that age. _"Yay, Mom! Another Kalashnikov variant to field strip, clean and reassemble; I'll pass on the Legos, don't worry about fun or anything like that_." He shook the warped memory out of his head; he didn't know about Legos as a youngster. Not that he knew much now, but still...

_Wonder what Cameron would have gotten me this year?_

The thought flashed through his mind like a thief in the night, unannounced and leaving him feeling like something was missing. "Crap!" he muttered dismissively, then followed Mary out back to admire the boys' handiwork; not bad, but not at all like the one out front, which had seemed almost like a person frozen in place. The oldest boy, Ivan, was putting the finishing touches to their joint creation, placing the carrot his mom had retrieved from her kitchen into the middle of the snowman's face. They had used a couple of stones for the eyes, several smaller ones for a smiley mouth. John hadn't noticed what eyes the snowman out front had worn; another thing to check out.

The slushy snow around the snowman's base was badly disturbed, a scar on the idyllic landscape made as the boys had rolled the three large balls of snow into place to create him. It occurred to John that the one out front had been pristine, as was the snowfall surrounding it. Could it have been built while the snow continued to fall, covering the tracks of whoever made it? _Hmm._

He bade his farewells and headed back to the front of the house. His stomach flipped when he saw that the object of his curiosity had gone. The only trace left of the snowman, now seeming to John more mysterious than ever before, was a small pile of snow, surely not enough to have made the figure he had seen. He could see a small pair of footprints leading away from the site, heading for the town. He followed them, treading carefully as he made his way down the slippery, sloping road toward the diner where he had intended to have a hearty breakfast. The footprints merged with many others on Main Street, leaving him no further clues. He decided to refuel himself before investigating the mystery further.

Soon he was safely ensconced in a seat in _Mean Ol' Moe's_, waiting for the waitress to shuffle over. The diner wasn't really called "Mean Ol' Moe's," the sign outside actually proclaimed "Moe's Diner" in bright blue neon; it was just that the first owner had been called Moe, and legend had it that he was as mean as Ebeneezer Scrooge, or so John had been told on his first visit to the modest establishment, when he had been buttonholed by Chuck, the town drunk. He had been rescued on that occasion by Rachel, the waitress who now hovered over him.

"The usual, John?" she asked. After two days she'd obviously decided that he wasn't going to venture out of his comfort zone, food-wise.

"Uh, yeah," he replied, looking up at her round, cheery face. Then he had a thought, a memory really. "Um, wait... Can I get strawberries with those pancakes?"

Rachel screwed up her face scornfully. "At _this_ time of year? Way out here?" She rolled away chortling to herself. Likely she'd be regaling the other regulars with the story all day, if not all of what remained of the year. _"Crazy newcomers, right?"_ she would say. They'd turn and look at him, shaking their heads, not hiding their grins. _"Yep, crazy hippies,"_ they'd concur. Everyone from south of the Canadian border was a hippie, the townsfolk had long since decided. Or a Californian, as if there was a difference. All that and more he had learned from hanging out in Moe's Diner and the _Two Shots_ bar across the way. He still hadn't rooted out the origin of the bar's name, but it was something to look forward to after his forthcoming sojourn into the forest. _It's the simple things_, he thought wryly.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

As he slapped a couple of Canadian notes down on the table he smiled appreciatively at Rachel. Even though she was gonna be laughing at his supposed stupidity for the foreseeable future, she reminded him of his mother, as most waitresses did.

"Loved the pancakes, Rachel!" he said, by way of lessening his shame.

"Don't thank me, thank the new short order cook," she replied.

"New?" John was curious: it seemed he wasn't the only newcomer in town.

"Yeah. Troy called in sick, said he knew someone who could fill in, sent her up this morning. She has a secret pancake ingredient."

"Yeah?" John said, drawing the word out slowly.

"Yup: puts vanilla in. Seems you're the only one that's taken to it in a big way; no-one else has mentioned it."

Her side-long glances at the other customers told him that he had only dug himself deeper into the mire when it came to public humiliation. But something else was really niggling at him.

"What's she look like, this new cook?" he asked.

"Cute, young, brunette. Not as good looking as I was ten years ago, but then, who is, right?" She winked at one among her admiring audience of male customers.

"Nobody, Rachel, nobody," the forty-something swarthy-faced guy said. John couldn't recall his name, another mistake that would get him a tongue-lashing from Sarah Connor; _"No detail is too small!"_ she'd frequently shrieked at him, like his own personal drill instructor. _"Yes, Mom! No, Mom!"_ he'd meekly replied, unsure which answer was correct.

He shook himself out of his reverie. "She still in back?" he said to Rachel, though he didn't wait for an answer, pushing past her into the kitchen.

"Wait," she called, but again he ignored her. The kitchen was empty apart from Juanita, the other regular cook.

"Can't come in here, mister," she said, waving a spatula at him.

"The new girl, where is she?" he said, not pausing in the slightest at the threat presented by the kitchen implement or its bearer.

"Stepped outside for a smoke, back in five," Juanita said. "You really can't be in here," she added as she intercepted his path to the rear exit. "Go out front, then take the alleyway," she offered in what she thought was a helpful way.

"Right," John said.

"Yeah, on the right," she said.

"Eh?" John was momentarily puzzled by her repetition, then got it. "Okay, thanks." He walked briskly out of the diner, then broke into a trot as he rounded the building. He easily found the rear exit. There were plenty of squashed cigarette butts there, under the snow, but none were fresh. _As if a terminator would smoke_, he thought. _But maybe to blend in?_ She was here, he knew it now. Cameron. She'd found him, and quickly too, something he'd thought impossible. _They never do give up, right? Um, yeah_. So where was she?

"Where are you?" he yelled.

"Right here, buddy."

He whirled around at the sound of the voice. It was Chuck, red-faced as usual, though not from the cold. John pushed him away, but not too forcefully. The old drunk staggered but did not fall, used to being unsteady on his feet. John started to run, but was careful not to slip on the snow. Once more he followed the small set of footprints, this time leading out of the alley onto Main Street. As before, once there they merged with many others, including his own. He looked up and down the road, yet couldn't see anything out of place; nothing familiar either, though. It struck him that he'd missed Cameron more than he'd cared to admit, even to himself; certainly more than he was expecting, and now that he'd had a tantalizing hint that she was still there for him, he desperately wanted to see her, to take in that quirky smile, those beseeching eyes, her unending inquisitiveness, her forthright manner when the crap hit the fan, her smell, the way she'd shake out her hair, the shapely curve of her body as she leaned over to get something out of the oven... _Jeez!_

"Where are you!" he shouted again, uncaring if the whole town thought him a fool.

"Right here, behind you. As I always am," a soft voice spoke to him. He whirled around, slipping slightly in the snow, but there she was, catching him, steadying him. She looked earnestly up at him, possibly worried about his reaction, though as it turned out unnecessarily. As he was held by her strong arms, he pulled her in tighter, closer. If she'd needed to breathe, she would have found great difficulty so doing, so tight was his embrace.

"Don't leave," he said. It never occurred to him, the irony of his demand: he was the one to leave her originally, but he was only thinking of the here and now; she'd disappeared on him twice this morning, and now he was holding on to her as if his life depended on it. And maybe it did.

"I won't," she said.

"I love you," he said simply.

There was no hesitation in his voice, no sense that it was a trick. Cameron didn't need to bio-scan him to decipher this; she just knew it to be true.

"I know," she replied. She smiled slightly, then added, "I love you too."

"That's some secret ingredient you put in them pancakes, honey," Rachel said from behind the reunited partners, "but they don't cook themselves. You wanna get your ass back in the kitchen? We got orders to fill."

Cameron turned to the waitress. "Just one minute more?" She got a reluctant affirmative nod in reply, then moved her attention back to John. "Kiss me?"

He paused to consider if it was a question or a demand, then checked himself: _Like, who cares?_ His lips met hers, and months of tension and disagreement melted away like the snow under their feet. When they pulled apart no further words of apology or affirmation needed to be uttered: they understood each other fully.

"I should finish my shift, if we're gonna be staying here," Cameron said, glancing in the direction that Rachel had gone.

"Uh, yeah. Want me to wait around for you?" John said.

Cameron smiled faintly. "You got anything better to do?"

John smirked. "Not right now. In a few years, maybe one or two things, but my schedule's pretty free today."

"Good. Wait inside, I'll send you over another coffee."

John nodded and smiled, doing as she asked. While waiting, to pass the time he read the local paper cover to cover, engaged in some good-humored banter with a couple of the natives and finally ate a small sandwich for lunch. Eventually he got up to stretch his legs and was quickly joined by his erstwhile companion. She linked her arm in his, perhaps to ensure he didn't get any ideas about making another run for it. As they exited the diner, Rachel wolf-whistled at the pair. Cameron ignored it, John cringed with embarrassment. As they headed away, he asked Cameron how she had found him.

"I got a phone call. It was a female voice, saying that you were staying in this town, at 471 Maple Avenue."

"And you came, just on that? No other evidence? It could have been a terminator, you realize that, right?"

"Yes, it could have been a trap, that is why I studied the whole area for a day."

"You got caught under the snow last night."

"Yes."

"You made for a nice snowman," John said, squeezing her hand.

"Snow _man?_"

"Don't get picky, I was paying you a compliment."

"Oh. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"I won't."

"Right..."

After some moments of silence, they had reached the start of Maple Avenue. 471 was the last house on the street, older and completely different in style to its neighbors.

"So, when did you get the call? You musta been driving like non-stop to get here so fast."

"Non-stop? No." She shook her head slightly. "I had to stop for gas," Cameron clarified.

John paused in mid-stride, she did likewise. Cameron studied him carefully. He seemed about to rebuke her, but he contained himself and smiled slightly, though it was more of a grimace. _Better than him shouting at me, like back in L.A._, she decided.

"Of course you did," John agreed as they resumed their walk, "but when did you get the call, 'cause if you've been here a day..?"

"Friday morning. How did you find this house?"

"I'd hitched a lift, the guy dropped me off in Main Street. First thing I saw was a card in the window of the grocery store: '_Cheap room to let, short term no problem'_ it said. I called the number, thirty minutes later I'm laying back on the comfiest bed I've had since... well, since I left L.A." His mind wandered for a second to thoughts of himself and Cameron testing the comfort of the bed when he snapped back sharply. "Wait, wait, _wait!_ I got here Saturday. How the hell could someone tell you I'd be here? I mean, exactly here? Before I even got here?" He pointed to the ground at his feet to add emphasis to his remark.

"I don't know. There seems to be too many coincidences for it to be a trap."

"Really? Seems like there are too many for it not to be," John said forcefully.

"I should clarify; a terminator would not rely on coincidence to set a trap. Putting a card in the window of a grocery store is a long shot. Getting a truck driver to pick you up and drop you here is a possible sign of conspiracy, but that in itself would have presented a better opportunity to kill you than luring you and me to this house."

"Right," John said skeptically. "So dark forces are at work, but they're human not cyborgish?"

"Cyborgish?"

"What did I say about being picky?"

"That didn't sound like a compliment," Cameron said quietly.

John inhaled deeply. "Okay, sorry," he said.

They'd reached 471 Maple, but it looked quite different to only a few hours before. The snow in the front yard looked grayer and the house itself seemed colder. No lights were on, despite the gloom as the winter sun began to set. John strode up the path he had cleared earlier and opened the front door. Inside, the house was empty of life. Their footsteps clattered eerily on the bare wooden floors as they headed for the kitchen. The table and chairs were still placed just as John had seen them before, but were now covered in a thick layer of dust. The fridge that Mary Watkins had reached into for a carrot that morning was bare and gave off a musty smell. He followed the electric supply wire back to the plug on the end, but found it was not connected to the main. He turned to Cameron, started to say something, but stopped on remembering the snowman that the children of the house had built while he shoveled the path. The windows looking out on the back yard were caked in dust and grime and cobwebs, so much so that he couldn't see anything distinctive outside. He unbolted the back door and rushed out, Cameron tracking his every move, alert to possible danger. She drew her Glock from somewhere beneath her over-sized sweater and followed him out into the snow.

John was standing in the middle of the yard. "Where is it?" he yelled.

"Where's what?" Cameron said, after ascertaining that there were no threats nearby.

"The kids' snowman. It was _here_. Right freaking here! She gave them a carrot to make a nose."

Cameron decided that using a carrot for a nose required further study, but she would keep that for a later time; preferably when she had a computer and internet access. "We should go inside, check your room," she said.

"Yeah," John agreed, taking her hand and trotting back inside. He led the way upstairs to his attic room. His stuff was as he'd left it, resting on the fully-made bed, ready for his intended departure to the forest. "Does this room seem cold to you?" he asked.

"No," Cameron replied. "It is currently fifteen degrees Celsius in here. The rest of the house is no more than three degrees. The water is likely beginning to freeze in the pipes."

"Why is it warmer in here than out there?" John asked, pointing a thumb toward the hallway.

"I cannot say," Cameron replied. She walked around the room, pausing to touch the cast iron radiator on the far side. "It's cold. I can't trace the source of the heat in this room."

"That's odd."

"Yes."

"You don't like things that are odd and that you can't explain," John pointed out.

"No," Cameron said. She tilted her head and scrunched up her face pensively. "Except for one thing," she added.

"Oh? What's that?"

"You," she said.

"Ah!" John chuckled at her joke. "I think this situation calls for an executive decision."

"Yes," Cameron agreed.

"After much consideration, due diligence and lengthy consultation..." John stopped, apparently deep in thought as he lifted the case containing his bow and arrows.

"Yes?" Cameron prompted, interrupting his dramatic pause.

"I think we should get the hell out of here!"

"Good choice," Cameron said, snatching John's back pack off the bed. "Anything else need to go in here?"

John grabbed what he had previously offloaded into the closet and stuffed it into the bag, catching a slight wince from Cameron. _She's probably thinking of the ironing_, he reasoned. "You bring the Jeep?" he asked. She replied _"Yes"_ as they hurtled down the stairs. "So where is it?"

"Not far from the diner. Want me to get it?"

"No, we'll stick together," he said, leaning closer.

"Okay."

They linked arms again and settled into a fast-paced walk. Reaching the gold SUV, as John buckled himself into the familiar, easy comfort of the Jeep's passenger seat, he wanted to know how Cameron had gotten the cooking job.

"I followed the cook home, knocked him out and tied him up. I imitated his voice to call in."

"Now, where did you get that idea?" John said sarcastically. In reply, Cameron merely raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know I'd be at the diner?" he continued. Cameron started the engine then gave John another look he was well acquainted with. "Okay, dumb-John. I always eat at diners..."

"Got it in one," she said, but smiled warmly. As she pulled out onto Main Street, she spotted Rachel exiting Moe's Diner. The waitress in turn noticed them and waved them over. Cameron slowed the car to a halt by Rachel's side, and wound the window down.

"Hmm, you two love birds going off somewhere to get up to something naughty?" the woman said with her trademark exaggerated wink.

"Maybe," Cameron replied in a slow, shy tone. She curled up slightly, feigning embarrassment. Quite effectively, in John's estimation.

"So, the big question is, your place or his?" Rachel said.

"Um, mine," Cameron said.

John leaned over, unconsciously taking Cameron's hand in a tender display of affection. "Say, do you know what happened to Mary and the kids?" he asked.

Rachel scowled. "Mary who?"

"Mary Watkins. Of 471 Maple."

"Jeez, you're going back some. That's pretty ancient history."

"What do you mean?" Cameron said, all affectation gone from her voice.

The waitress noticed this, and herself became more serious. "Mary Watkins an' her kids were murdered by her old man, back in the 1930s. He just went off his head one day. Killed them with poison, then cut up their bodies with an axe, buried them in the backyard."

"What happened to him?" John asked.

"He ran off into the forest. Mounties tracked him, eventually. Committed suicide: shot himself in the head." Rachel's face took on a reflective expression. "Come to think of it, they say he fired twice, first bullet went clean through his skull without doing the deed, but the second one worked better. I think the Mounties did it, myself, but I guess it all adds to the mystery. Brings in the odd tourist still. Mostly in summer though. Is that why you're here?"

"No, never heard of it," John said. "Till now. Anyways, we gotta be going."

"I'll bet you do! Take care – don't do anything I wouldn't do!" The woman waved them off with a final cheery leer.

"Guess that's where the saloon bar gets its name," John said, pointing to it.

"_Two Shots_. Hmm, and I thought that was your alcohol limit," Cameron said.

"You mean, that's all you'll let me have, or how much I can take?"

Cameron looked over and smiled. "We'll see."

"Before we go, I think we oughtta release the cook, don't you?" John suggested. "If he's not dead all ready?"

"I didn't kill him; I know how you feel about that sort of thing," Cameron said.

John patted her hand and beamed at her. "Slowly but surely, we're getting there," he said.

Cameron filed that away for further deliberation, then realized that file was getting pretty big. She regretted not spending more time recently on deciphering John's cryptic comments, rather than being powered down waiting for the phone to ring.

Having salved John's conscience regarding the well-being of Troy the short order cook, they resumed their journey. They'd reached the nearest main road, and were not far from the highway that headed south when John took Cameron's hand once more.

"You believe in ghosts?" He felt her grip increase just a fraction before she started rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. "I mean, after today?"

"I believe that some people experience things that they cannot explain rationally," she said.

"Okay, but you saw her this morning, right?"

"Yes."

"Out front, she was right out there with me, handed me that freaking big shovel."

"Yes, she was right out there and it was freaking big."

"So, can you explain it?"

"No."

"Are you gonna put some of your ginormous processing power onto it?"

"At some point. But not right now."

"Oh."

John's hand went limp in hers. She squeezed it again, and adopted a warm, reassuring tone. "Hey, we'll stop at a motel in a couple of hours. Have a hot shower, then maybe do something that Rachel wouldn't do." She hoped that she had achieved the right level of sultriness in her voice.

John's hand in hers indicated that she had. "Something naughty?" he said, hopefully.

"Or something nice," she replied playfully.

"So, do I take it from the southerly direction we're headed, that you don't wanna hang around and do some survival training up here in the Arctic?"

"This isn't the Arctic, but you should know that I don't do cold."

"No?" John inquired.

"No. My joints prefer the warmth of the sun."

"Yeah, mine too," John agreed.

A few hours later, they were safely snuggled up in a warm motel bed.

"It's midnight," Cameron announced, just as John was dozing off.

"It is? Oh well, then, merry Christmas, Cameron," he said, sleepily.

"Merry Christmas, John," she said. _Definitely better than last year,_ she thought, as she gently kissed him.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

_**NEXT: Chapter Two**__ – Do They Know It's Christmas?_

_In which John & Cameron discover the importance of synthesis, and uncover the past in the present and the future in the past._


	2. 2

**SOMETHING ELF**

**Chapter Two: Do They Know It's Christmas?**

_**Somewhere in Canada: Tuesday, December 25th 2007.**_

"What are you thinking about?"

John Connor opened one eye slowly. Gazing down at him was Cameron Phillips, looking somewhat contrary to her usual, immaculately-presented self: she had a serious case of bedhead. _But then, she has good reason to_, John thought slyly. She was lying alongside him, propped up on one elbow, thus giving her the height advantage. Even in his semi-wakened state, to him she looked more beautiful than ever.

"I was thinking that I haven't gotten you a Christmas present," he replied.

"Liar," she retorted, though there was nothing malicious about her tone; if anything it was a mite playful.

John noticed that her delicate strokes along his neck were lingering on his pulse. _A little bit of polygraphy, perhaps?_ "Okay, you got me there, officer! I was thinking about how your hair got to be so messed up."

"I see."

"That all you got to say?"

"While your hands are wandering all over my body, yes," Cameron replied. She smiled, her mouth opening slightly so that he could see a hint of her oh-so-white teeth. John took that as an invitation to investigate further with his tongue, and he didn't stop there.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

Sometime later, an even more bedraggled cyborg extracted herself from her lover's embrace and headed for the motel room's only window, where she slid the curtain back a fraction and peeped out.

"It's cold outside," she said.

"But it's warm in here," John said, patting the vacant space next to him on the bed.

Cameron looked puzzled. "Are you sure you can manage?"

John shrugged. "I'm willing to try... and what else is there to do?" His look of serious concentration transformed into a suggestive grin.

Cameron rejoined him on the bed, but instead of climbing in, she merely sat beside him. "Was it pleasurable for you?"

John frowned, but tried to regain his smile. "Wasn't it obvious? And that I'm eager for more, doesn't that tell you something?"

"I'm not an expert in these situations."

"Really? You seemed to know when Fay was faking. How about you, huh?"

"Just because I didn't scream like a banshee, doesn't mean that I was unsatisfied or that I found you unfulfilling, John."

"Okay, well, when you put it like that..."

"Like what?"

"All in terminatory gobbledegook. Look, I get it Cameron, okay? You can't express yourself."

Cameron frowned. "I thought that I'd made myself perfectly clear."

John looked at her carefully; she was definitely hurt. It would seem that his usual hair-trigger reactions to difficult emotional issues had not dissipated in the time that they'd spent apart. And maybe – no, _absolutely_ _–_ she was a little confused by the turn their relationship had taken. And, he admitted, so was he.

"You did... I was just being... me: an asshole. I'm sorry, okay? I love you, and I don't wanna do anything to hurt you or upset you. I know all this is new to you, and I guess we're breaking new ground here, in human-cyborg relations," John said. He squeezed her hand in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

Cameron looked John in the eye. "No, we are not the first."

John tilted his head involuntarily, then shook it, lest she think that he was mimicking her. "We're not?"

"No," she confirmed.

"Well, that's disappointing."

"That humans have mated with cyborgs, or that we are not the first?"

"Um, the latter."

"Why?"

"I dunno. I mean, if we're not the first, how come there's no manual?"

"Manual?"

"Yeah, a guide, something like _Human-Cyborg Sexual Relations for Dummies_."

"Are you a dummy?"

"You tell me."

"Is that a trick question?"

"Nope. Look, it's taken us so long to get this far; if there was an _Idiot's Guide_, maybe we'd have made progress just that little bit earlier."

"I see. So you think that we should have had sex before now?"

"Er, no. I just think that maybe we wouldn't have had so many... _issues,_ along the way."

"I see."

"You say that a lot. Makes me wonder if you do see."

"I understand more than you think."

"Yeah... Listen, I can't handle so much deep, philosophical discussion at this time of the morning, and before I've even had coffee yet!"

Cameron's eyes widened a fraction. "I forgot about that."

"Well, there's a first!"

"It's not the only new occurrence today."

"No. And I hope the two don't go hand in hand."

"They might."

"Yeah, well..."

"Although John Connor without his morning coffee is something the world is not ready for, just yet."

"Yeah... Let's shower, get dressed and check out some place to eat."

"Don't you want me to make you a cup of instant?" Cameron said, gesturing to the kettle, cups and multicolored sachets on the nightstand.

John shivered. "No way! The day hasn't come when I have to drink that crap."

"And when would that day be?"

"Judgment Day, plus however long it takes for the supplies to run out in our bunker."

"I estimate three years, if you exercise restraint and portion it out fairly."

"I'm not sharing. No way."

"I see."

"The perks of being the savior of mankind," John said smugly.

"I see."

"Right... I'm gonna take that shower. Care to join?"

"Another of the perks of being the savior of mankind?"

"Absolutely!"

_**# # # # # # # #**_

John pulled on his last clean shirt while Cameron dried her hair. After rooting through his back pack for another layer of clothing, he decided that yesterday's black hoodie would suffice.

"You didn't bring me any of my clothes?" he asked of his partner.

"You've survived this far without them. If you'd wanted anything, you had only to pick up the phone," she said.

"Yeah, fair enough," he acknowledged. "Listen, what do you wanna do today?"

Cameron looked up from where she was sitting in front of the room's only mirror, glancing at John's reflection in it. "Do you mind if we hold back on the sex for a while? I need to ingest some food in order to synthesize more self-lubricant." She turned to look directly at her new lover; she could see John blushing furiously.

"Uh, yeah, um, sure," he stammered. "I mean, I never thought..."

"It's okay; I didn't know myself," she said, trying to ease his concerns.

"Right. So, er, I was _actually_ thinking more about, you know, catching a movie, something like that," John said.

"Oh, right."

"So?"

"The nearest movie theater is one hundred nineteen miles from here."

"Right."

"And after last year's outing, I'm not sure that the current selection would be worth the trip."

"Are you saying I'm picky?"

"On the contrary: usually, predicting your choice is too easy; at this time of year however, most of the offerings are not to your taste."

"Right. You're doing that gobbledegook thing again," John huffed.

"Hmm. You need to expand your vocabulary," Cameron responded, before tending further to her tresses.

John sat on the bed to pull on his boots, before going to the window and taking in the view. Just like the day before, as far as the eye could see there was a blanket of snow covering everything; he could make out the familiar shape of their Jeep Grand Cherokee underneath, but not the tracks the car had made when they'd parked up for the night. The skies were clear and blue, but for a dark smudge of cloud on the horizon. The all-encompassing whiteness intensified the sun's glare, and so he returned his gaze to the room, taking a moment to adjust to the relative gloom.

Cameron had by now retreated to the bathroom, _Presumably to finish off whatever it is that she does in there_, John thought. _Maybe I oughtta ask her about stuff like that?_ He saw that she had placed her duffel bag on the bed and peeked inside. Amongst a selection of her typical clothing he found a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and some spare loaded magazines for it and her Glock17. _Just what every girl wants!_ he chuckled to himself. He turned over a thick book to check the title on the cover: _The History of the Peloponnesian War_. John snorted. _This, not so much_, he decided.

"Find anything interesting?"

John dropped the book and turned towards the voice; Cameron was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, but didn't appear annoyed, merely curious.

"Uh, I see you pack for all occasions," John said.

"Yes."

Her gaze was nonthreatening, but at the same time unrelenting. He shifted his focus to take in the entirety of her. Her hair was now dry, and she had done something to make it fall in big, soft curls; his favorite of her many 'dos. She wore a long black cotton tee-shirt that could easily pass for a mini-dress, but he remembered that she preferred wearing it over jeans. On her feet were multicolored knee-length socks, a rainbow pattern of cheerfulness. And they had separate toes too! He couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity.

Cameron raised an eyebrow. "You like?"

John strode forward purposefully. "Very much," he said, leaning in to kiss her. He felt a restraining hand upon his chest.

"Not yet," she said.

John frowned, then remembered her prior words of caution. "Okay, _no problemo_," he said. "I'm really sorry, for the 'gobbledegook' thing just now. And earlier."

"Me too," she said, leaning up to plant a gentle kiss on his lips. They both smiled as they held each other.

"Let's start over," John declared. "I'm starving, so we oughtta get food, then maybe we can watch whatever's on the tube. Most likely it'll be _It's A Wonderful Life_ or _The Wizard of Wasn't_."

"Don't you mean _The Wizard of Oz_?" she asked.

"Nah, the movie's nothing like the book."

"The songs are nice," Cameron said.

"You think so?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have said so otherwise."

"Hmm, okay. I'm still hungry though. You going out like that, or you gonna put some jeans on?" John said, patting her butt cheeks affectionately. Cameron grabbed his wrists and unwound his arms.

"Hands off the merchandise, mister. Remember: you break it, you bought it," she warned with a small grin.

"Oh, I believe I've already paid, miss."

"Why yes, yes you have."

_**# # # # # # # #**_

John opened the motel room's door and gestured for Cameron to exit before him, thinking it gentlemanly. She smiled at the courtesy, but always went first anyway, though for security reasons. Not that she ever told him this, it was likely one of those things that would set off his temper; his macho pride was so easily wounded. She gladly took his proffered hand, however.

As John wrapped his gloved hand around her smaller but stronger one, he noticed the lights in the hallway blink off and on again, but thought nothing more of it; it was a common occurrence in winter, especially in cheap motels, and they didn't come any cheaper than this one, though they hadn't had much choice on Christmas Eve. _It was this or a stable_, he grinned to himself.

As they reached the snow-covered road, John could see the bright, neon lights advertising the presence of a diner just a few hundred yards away. He nodded towards it, and Cameron smiled in agreement, so off they set on the short walk, still holding hands unselfconsciously. Traffic on this festive day was light. John counted only two vehicles passing them; both had local dealer stickers on their rear windows and the drivers exhibited no overt signs of menace or threat.

They knocked the excess snow from their boots on the small flight of three steps leading into the diner, inside which they were greeted by an elderly, homely woman, whose name tag identified her as _Molly_.

"Didn't think anybody'd be open on Christmas Day," John said.

"Oh, we never close," Molly said, guiding them to a table near the middle. "We have a Buddhist short-order cook and an atheist dishwasher," she explained cheerily.

"And you?" Cameron asked.

"Me? I'm just desperate for money, and the skinflint who owns this joint pays double on holidays," Molly said with another chuckle that set her jowls wobbling.

"Well, as long as we're not keeping you from your family..." John said, shrugging.

Molly waived his feeble protest away. "Nah, my son is living the high-life in California with his latest girlfriend. He's a beach-bum surfer of some sort, never has time for his old mom."

"That's sad. I'm sorry," John said.

"Don't be; you bring 'em into this world, teach 'em how to survive, then you have to let 'em go do what they wanna do."

"Right," John said, before quickly changing the subject. "Um, can I get a coffee, black-no-sugar? And a mocha with extra cream and marshmallows on top for my girlfriend."

"Sure thing; be right with you," Molly said, scribbling on her pad while retreating to the hatch granting access to the kitchen.

"You called me your _girlfriend_," Cameron said.

John smiled. "Well, I guess it's about time, but I wasn't really thinking when I said that; probably my subconscious at work again."

"Sometimes it seems to act more sensibly than you," Cameron opined.

"Uh, yeah," John reluctantly agreed. "Thanks... I think."

"I meant no disrespect," Cameron said.

"Yeah, it's fine," John reassured her.

He looked around the diner thoroughly for the first time, taking in its worn linoleum floor and the tables with their once-shiny stainless steel edgings, and walls decorated with black and white photographs of movie stars from a bygone age, suggesting an air of faded grandeur. Meanwhile, Cameron plucked a plastic-coated menu from its holder screwed to the wall, and began studying it carefully. John tried to attract her attention subtly, forgetting that she followed his every word, deed and gesture. "That old waitress is looking at me funny," he whispered, shifting slightly in his seat.

"Maybe she's gonna ask you out; you do have this effect on waitresses," Cameron said.

Recalling their first meeting, John pulled a face. "Ha-ha, so witty; but I don't think you count."

"I was working as a waitress," Cameron said.

"Yeah, not what I meant."

"What _did_ you mean, then?"

"Never mind, here she comes. Act normal."

"Normal?"

Before he could reply, the waitress returned bearing some coffee for John.

"Your mocha will be just a minute, sweetie," she said to Cameron, before departing surprisingly quickly. As promised, she returned within sixty seconds, placing a mug overflowing with whipped cream in front of the cyborg, who proceeded to scoop up a couple of the tiny blobs of marshmallow with a long-handled spoon and pop them into her mouth with a satisfying slurp. "Are you ready to order food?"

"Uh, yeah," John said distractedly, his brain taking a moment to shift gears from the extraordinary sight of Cameron enjoying herself, to the mundane business of ordering food. "Is there anything on the menu besides turkey?" he joked.

"Why sure," Molly said. "Whatever you want, if it's on there you can have it. Whatever..."

"Whatever?" John parroted. He had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Before he could open his mouth to speak, he was forestalled by Cameron ordering for both of them the healthiest items on the menu. _So that's how it's gonna be from now on_, he thought.

The waitress scribbled everything down in her small pad, all the while maintaining a cheerfulness in her expression, despite the repetitive nature of her work. John regarded her cautiously, not because she presented a threat, but because something about her seemed familiar, though he couldn't put his finger on it. She wrote neatly and carefully, and finished with an emphatic dab of her pencil, but lingered a moment too long for his liking.

"Is there something I can help you with, Molly?" he said.

"You remember me? I wasn't sure, you were just a boy then," she said.

"What? No, I just read your name tag," John said. He scrutinized the woman more thoroughly. She looked like Central Casting's idea of a grandmother: gray hair pulled back into a bun, rosy cheeks and a stout frame. From the corner of his eye, he noted that Cameron was tensing as if to strike. He smiled at Molly. "You say you know me; how?"

"Your mother worked here, must have been fourteen, fifteen years ago, something like that. _Sarah_, right? She was only here six months, but we all loved her; such a sweet girl, and a hard worker. Had no friends away from here though; she hadda work Christmas, brought you in here. We all spoiled you rotten; you said you'd never had a Christmas before."

John was captivated, his mind dredging its depths for snippets to match those provided by the kindly old woman. He could see himself sitting at the table next to theirs, his feet not quite reaching the floor, his over-long fringe flopping in his eyes as he turned the page of some weighty tome. The diner's linoleum floor was a brighter shade of red and the tables looked less worn. A more youthful version of Molly surprised the young boy by tapping him on the shoulder and offering him a gift-wrapped box. His young face lit up with a huge, beaming smile. "Thank you," young John said, in a squeaky, excited voice, before carefully unwrapping the package.

The image faded before John could see the gift inside. "What's the name of this town?" he asked.

"Edenbridge," Molly said. "You didn't notice when you arrived?"

"Uh, it was dark, and I had other things on my mind," John said.

"I'll say," said Cameron. John shot her a look.

Molly turned to regard her as well. "And who is this?" she inquired in a kindly manner.

"This is my girlfriend, Cameron Phillips," John said. In under twenty-four hours he'd not only been reunited with her, but had accepted her into his heart and acknowledged her place at his side as much more than friend, partner or bodyguard.

"Well, pleased to meet you, sweetie. You two been together long?"

"Uh, yeah. In a way, it's been over a year now," John said.

"Any wedding plans?" Molly asked.

"Oh, no; we've only just started having sex," Cameron replied. John spluttered as his coffee went down the wrong hole. She patted his back, looking concerned.

"Uh, Molly doesn't need to know that, honey," he said after his coughing fit subsided.

"Oh. Right," Cameron said, shifting away slightly. She looked down at her hands.

"Oh, away with you; I've been around the block a few times!" Molly laughed. "Tell me everything!"

"Well, we first kissed on Christmas Eve last year, but it upset John and he ran off," Cameron said conversationally.

"That's not good," Molly said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

"No, but it was my fault: I rejected him as soon as I knew he was attracted to me."

"Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen," Molly observed.

Cameron nodded along in agreement, as if she was an old hand at the game of love herself. John stared open-mouthed between the two women as they continued discussing his most embarrassing moments.

"So, you picked him up from the drunk tank?" Molly was saying.

"Yes!" Cameron replied, "And he vomited all over me; I was picking bits of carrot out of my hair all night!"

"Eww! Been there, missie," Molly said.

"But, he did say that he loved me, just before throwing up," Cameron continued.

"Oh yeah? Been there too."

Cameron turned serious. "But he really meant it," she said earnestly.

"They always do, sweetie," Molly said.

"No, not John. He loved me, but he took, like, a year to work it all out."

"Ooh, well that _really_ is not good," Molly chided.

"No. John can be an asshole sometimes," Cameron said, taking hold of his hand on the table, "but he's my asshole." She looked between two stunned faces. "That was a joke," she explained.

John leaned closer to her ear and in a stage whisper said, "Odd choice of words there, _honey_, but I'm sure we get the idea." He squeezed reassuringly the hand that he'd enveloped with his, and added a wink.

Cameron took a second to replay and analyze her last sentence. "Oh, right," she said, laughing in an embarrassed way.

"Relax, sweetie," Molly said. "Mixing your words up isn't a problem; being with an asshole can do that to you!" She chuckled at her own witticism, the rolls of fat on her double chins once more wobbling in accompaniment.

John coughed loudly. "Erm, interesting as this story is, can we move on to another chapter, like today? Wait, did anyone else hear that rumble?" He cupped his ear. "Must be my stomach, which is like, totally empty."

The two women exchanged knowing glances, before Molly retreated to the kitchen.

"That was rude," Cameron huffed.

"And showing me up in public isn't? Two years running?" John folded his arms and leaned back in his seat.

Shortly, Molly brought their food. "Aww, why don't you kiss and make up under the mistletoe, huh? Least you can do." She pointed to the said foliage hanging from an overhead sign.

John cursed déjà vu and all things French, as if that nation alone was culpable for his embarrassing memories. "That's _exactly_ what that saleswoman said last year! This is totally fu–"

"Pardon my boyfriend's language," Cameron interrupted apologetically, giving John a sharp dig in the ribs. He glared at her.

"Oh, don't worry, I've heard worse," said Molly obligingly. "So, how is your mom?" she said, turning to John, whose mood changed dramatically.

"Uh, she, uh..." John's mouth went dry, and he had to take a gulp of coffee. Cameron put an arm around him, then addressed Molly.

"She died, two years ago."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! How?" Molly said.

"Cancer," Cameron replied.

Molly shook her head. "She smoked like a chimney, as I recall, but it's no way to go, especially so young."

"No," agreed Cameron.

John wiped a tear from his eyes, and as his vision cleared, he saw the young version of himself joyfully showing his mother the inside of the box. Sarah Connor looked so young and vibrant to him. He'd forgotten about her almost incessant cigarette smoking; she'd light up at every available opportunity, only finally kicking the habit after being incarcerated at Pescadero State Hospital. And there she was, squatting alongside him, smiling lovingly, keeping her glowing tip away from him, but taking quick hits in between telling him that one day she'd have the money to get him a real present.

He felt a twinge of guilt as he recalled that it was during her stay in Pescadero that he'd given up on her, refuting her stories about what the future held for him. He'd told anyone who asked that his mom was crazy. Looking at her now, she seemed anything but. She was toned and healthy-looking, but her eyes darted here, there and everywhere, only easing up and softening as her gaze rested on her son; but then she was off scanning the room again. He hadn't realized what it must have been like for her, in those long, lonely years. The temptation to give in and settle down with Charley Dixon must have been tremendous, and yet she did her duty, never giving in to something so trivial as personal happiness.

John wanted to get up and hug her and tell her that everything would be all right; to introduce her to his partner, the woman who had taken on Sarah's mantle as his protector. He wanted desperately for her to approve his choice, but he knew in his heart that would never happen, even if she wasn't just some inexplicable spectre. Her eyes were roving again, but this time they seemed to settle on him. He wondered if she was just looking at the picture on the wall of some movie star she'd liked, or maybe the actual person sitting there on that day – but then he remembered that the place was as deserted then as it was now. He tentatively smiled at her, and saw something flicker in her eyes, before her gaze moved from him to Cameron, who was returning her stare with equal intensity. Sarah's nostrils flared slightly; Cameron tilted her head.

Suddenly, Sarah stood up and dashed to the front of the diner. She looked out in all directions before doubling back to young John's side. She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her as she headed toward the kitchen. John was alarmed at the development, trying hard to recall the events. Then a bullhorn squeaked outside, and an amplified, distorted voice flooded the restaurant.

"_SARAH CONNOR! JOHN CONNOR! THIS IS THE FBI! YOU ARE SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND KNEEL ON THE GROUND!_"

John got up from his seat, shakily retracing Sarah's steps to the front door. He could see that the parking lot and street were blocked by an assortment of police and other official vehicles. And then he remembered: this was the day that they got caught. It was why he couldn't remember the present he'd been given by Molly; because it was the day his world ended.

Before this day, he'd happily gone along with his mother's training and rules and all the moving and upheaval, because he knew no different. Afterward, he'd thought the things she'd said were false, until his view was brutally realigned by a couple of terminators. And then it was more running and hiding, until... _Well, until yesterday_, he realized. And another terminator put a stop to that: _Cameron_.

Sarah came back into the restaurant from the kitchen, a look of resignation etched upon her face. What little hint there had been of an unworried young mother was now gone; there was only the harried and harassed outlaw. "We can't go out the back," she was saying to young John, "there's too many of them. Don't do anything foolish, but if you get the chance, run. Okay? They won't shoot you. I'll find a way to get us out of this, somehow. I promise."

"I don't wanna go, mommy!" young John said, beginning to cry.

Sarah clutched him to her. "It'll be alright," she said soothingly. She slowly opened the front door of the diner and led her son out, shielding him as best she could. The order to kneel on the ground was repeated harshly by the man with the bullhorn, and she complied warily. Instantly, two men in black SWAT uniforms seized her and cuffed her hands behind her back. Another pair led young John helplessly away to a black minivan, made more menacing by having darkened windows. A tall, blonde woman in a black business suit and white blouse guided him inside, then shut the sliding door behind them both, barely muffling his screams. Sarah was placed in a panel van, then chained to the floor. Within a matter of minutes, the fleet of vehicles departed in a crescendo of noisy engines and sirens, but they couldn't drown out the sobs of a little boy calling for his mother.

John had risen from his seat and followed mother and son, standing at the front window of the diner as the events unfolded. Cameron joined him, apparently concerned. Abruptly, he snatched open the door and pursued the retreating sounds.

They set off at a fast pace after the assorted police and federal vehicles, Cameron holding John's hand in an attempt to stabilize him on the slippery surface, as he made his head-long rush. Soon however, the vehicles had disappeared from sight, and so they came to a halt, bending over to catch their breath after all the exertion. John took one more dejected glance up the road, then turned back to his companion. "I'm sorry," he said. "For a minute there, I thought it was real. I thought I could save her."

Cameron hugged him. "It's okay," she said.

And it was, he realized. He could say or do anything, and she'd still be there for him. He vowed to not abuse her unwavering dedication, and to accept the awesome responsibility that entailed. He returned her hug and placed a light kiss on her forehead, before guiding them back to the motel.

"This morning, when I said I hadn't gotten you a present, that's actually true, even if it wasn't the only thing on my mind," John said.

"I see."

"I didn't get you one, because I didn't think I'd see you again."

"I understand."

John shrugged and let out a small, contented sigh. "Good. So, you didn't get me anything either?"

"No, for the same reason."

"And yet, you came here looking for me," he pointed out.

"Yes, but I didn't expect to find you so quickly. If I had, I suppose I could have bought one of those cheap, gaudy gifts on sale at the gas stations along the way."

John chuckled. "Yeah, a red ball cap with reindeer antlers coming out the top!"

"Is that what you want? I'll go look if you do."

"Err, no. Your description was right on the money; that kinda thing is _so_ not me."

"Yes, so not you. What _would_ you like for Christmas? The choice may be limited."

John smiled. "Don't worry; I think I got everything I wished for," he said.

"You did?"

"Uh-huh." John squeezed her hand.

"Oh. I see." A little smile.

"Yeah, _now_ you see..."

As they walked into their motel room, there was another brief flickering of the lights. Cameron looked concerned, but John dismissed it out of hand. "It's nothing to worry about. With all this snowfall, bound to be lines down all over, and there'll be more power demand 'cause of the cold, so the remaining systems will be struggling to cope."

"Even so, I'm not comfortable," Cameron said.

John slipped his arms around her. "Then I'd better make you comfortable, hadn't I?" he said. "We can snuggle up under the blankets, watch Jimmy Stewart realize that the world really needs him, then maybe do a bit of making out." Cameron turned to face him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. "Or maybe not," John continued. He released his hold on her and headed for the room's television. He clicked it on, but could only get static on all channels. "Let's see if I can get this freakin' thing working."

"Maybe it's not the TV at fault; maybe the local transmitter is down."

"I thought these places had cable," John observed.

"I don't know; I didn't check for that when we registered."

"Really? And you claim to know me?" John shook his head, tutting jovially.

"I won't make that mistake a second time."

"What? Fail to check for cable, or claim to know me?"

"Both, smart-ass," Cameron said.

John grinned, then turned back to the TV. He slapped the top, to no effect.

"Want a hand, _honey?_" Cameron asked, adopting a sarcastic tone.

"No, I'm good," John said, ignoring the barb. "Why don't you take the weight off?" He waved an arm in the general direction of the bed. Cameron obliged by plonking herself down on the poorly-sprung mattress. John resumed fiddling with a knob on the back of the antiquated set.

"That's it," Cameron said after a few seconds.

John shuffled back on his knees to view the fruit of his efforts. The screen showed a dimly lit room. Some men, who all looked to be a minimum of forty-something, were dressed in combat fatigues and sat around a battered table, upon which were an assortment of chipped and scratched glasses and enamel mugs. One was passing around a flagon of an almost-clear liquid with which they all topped up their cups. When the rotation had been completed, the man at the head of the table raised his glass and spoke in a gravelly voice.

"And so, this is Christmas," he said. "Hope it's a good one."

The others raised their cups and murmured agreement. One however, dared to speak. The view zoomed in closer on him. On his chest was stenciled a name: _PERRY_. "Quoting John Lennon? Before your time, wasn't he?"

"My mother worked me hard, but she did occasionally allow me to hear the odd song; had to have a message though."

All the men laughed along with their apparent leader, upon whom the screen once again focused. As he lowered his glass back to the table, his name tag finally became clear: _CONNOR_.

John practically fell over backward. "What the hell?" He turned to Cameron. "What is this? What's going on?" Getting no reply, he scrambled to his feet. She was sitting on the bed still, staring at the TV screen. Her look was one he'd never seen before: it seemed to be somewhere between total confusion and dumbstruck.

"Those are my memories," she said.

Before he could interrogate her, his attention was drawn back to the screen. "How can we just sit around drinking hooch, when we should be kicking Skynet's butt?" someone out of view asked irritatedly.

Connor smiled benignly. "Relax Bart; let me tell you a story. Over one hundred years ago, the world was at war, just like now. At the focal point, the European Western Front, for a short time on Christmas Eve, the deafening barrage of artillery fell silent. The Germans sang carols and the British joined in. Eventually, they agreed to a ceasefire, to let the wounded and dead be collected from No Man's Land. Following that, food, drink and cigarettes were exchanged. Then an impromptu game of soccer took place."

"You suggesting we go out and throw a few balls around with _metal?_" Bart said sarcastically.

"No, I'm just telling a story. The situation was different to now, it was people fighting people, but even back then they thought they were in a Total War. Somehow though, a little bit of humanity crept through the horror. So, let's allow ourselves to be humans for an hour or two, before we get back to kicking Skynet's butt, huh?"

There was a chorus of "_Hell, yeahs!_" and a clinking of glasses from around the table, but before the hubbub completely died down, Connor continued, "The respective high commands frowned upon the fraternization and tried to put a stop to it; some things never change," he said.

The room fell quiet, but again, Perry was the one to break the silence. "John, people are talking about the metal being in the bunkers." His eyes flicked toward Cameron, who was standing by the door. "You know I'm with you on this," he continued, addressing his general, "but some people need reassuring."

Connor let out a protracted sigh. "You know, we should have won by now. We had done before."

"Huh?" Another commander voiced his bewilderment. "I'm sorry, but _what?_"

Connor ignored the question. "We can't win without them; it's that simple. But maybe, just maybe, we'll have the upper hand. I'm waiting on something that could turn things our way."

"A secret weapon?" Perry asked.

"Something like that," Connor said. "So, if you want to pray for something, pray for that." He raised his glass and drained it. The other commanders did likewise.

There was an insistent knock at the door. Connor indicated for Cameron to open it.

"Yes?" she said to a red-faced young fighter; he was not much more than a boy.

"Message for General Connor! The _Jimmy Carter_..." he broke off, overcome by emotion and exertion.

"Take a breath," Cameron said, stepping outside and closing the door behind her.

The young man steadied himself, looking for signs that the person in front of him was, as some claimed, a little metal bitch. She smiled at him. He convinced himself that her smile was a little off, and he felt nervous again.

"The general is a busy man," she prompted, her smile disappearing rapidly.

"The boat was lost, but there are some survivors," he said nervously.

"I see."

Cameron spent some time prodding and probing until she felt that she had obtained every last scrap of information that he had to offer. She dismissed him with what she thought was a comforting "_Thank you_," then using the retinal scanner, re-entered Connor's sanctuary.

"Sitrep," the general requested.

"The _Jimmy Carter_ was lost."

"And the package?"

"Also lost."

Connor thumped his fist hard down on the table, causing the assortment of glasses and mugs to jump and bounce and fall over. One clattered along the hard floor, another smashed into countless pieces. He cursed long and loudly, bellowing like a wounded elephant. He flung his chair back and strode toward the door, but was intercepted by Cameron.

"Perhaps it would be better if I interviewed the survivors," she said, making it sound unlike a question.

"She's got a point there, John," Perry said.

Connor took a step back, glanced around the room, then back to his bodyguard and confidante. "Okay. Do it," he ordered. His eyes showed the rage he barely contained.

On her return from the interviews, Cameron again let herself into the inner sanctum of General Connor. She met his eyes, but, unusually for her, she hesitated to speak.

"Spit it out!" Connor demanded. His fury had not abated in her absence.

Cameron gave concise details of the mission, including comments from the surviving crew members.

"Who's the senior surviving officer?" Connor said.

"Commander Jesse Flores," Cameron replied.

"The XO?" Perry asked.

"Yes," Cameron confirmed.

"Bring me that bastard's head on a plate!" Connor snarled.

Cameron cocked her head; she looked confused, but took a step toward the door.

"Whoa, there!" Perry interjected. "He doesn't mean that literally," he said to Cameron. "Right, General?"

Connor slumped in his chair, shaking his head. It seemed to those in the room that the fight had gone out of him, and they feared for the future in a way that they hadn't since John Connor had begun to lead them to victory after victory. They silently rose and sidled out of the chamber, eager to put some distance between themselves and their visibly-diminished leader.

All save one.

"Why don't you leave too?" Connor said bitterly.

She stepped into the feeble light cast by the ancient bulb overhead.

"I'll never leave you, John."

Connor opened his mouth to say something, but paused to take stock. "About that," he said eventually. "What about me when I was a smart-ass punk?"

"I don't understand," Cameron said.

"I have a back-up plan, to change things before all of this happened."

"Is that wise?"

"It can't get any worse."

_**# # # # # # # #**_

"Wake up, goddamit!"

John opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was back in their apartment, in the North Hills suburb of Los Angeles, but it looked wrong. Instead of every surface gleaming, they were covered in thick layers of dust. He looked to his left: the familiar white refrigerator was there, humming away as usual, but it too was unkempt, covered in grime. There should have been a sheet of paper containing their weekly work schedule pinned to it; it was something that Cameron updated every Sunday without fail, securing it to the fridge door with a John Deere logo magnet. He'd asked her a few times where she'd got it, but she'd merely responded with that enigmatic smile of hers. The paper was missing; so too the magnet.

He shifted his gaze to the front. On the other side of a kitchen table that was marked with coffee rings and other assorted stains, sat a small, fat man. His dark hair was receding and being overtaken by gray at the temples. A goatee beard, similarly flecked with the signs of age, adorned his face but couldn't disguise his double chin.

"Who the hell are you?" John demanded, struggling against the shackles that held him captive.

"Who indeed?" the man said.

"Where's Cameron?"

"Ah! That's interesting; to think that the future leader of the Resistance might fall in love with a machine. Most interesting, actually."

"Yeah, yeah," John said dismissively. "Now where is she?"

The man laughed uproariously, as if he'd heard the best joke ever; and maybe he had. John impatiently waited for him to compose himself.

"You think that you could turn the most sophisticated assassin Skynet ever created?" he sneered. "And that it would fall in love with you? It's a terminator, for crissake!" He laughed some more.

"You're lying; she was sent back to protect me, and she did. We fell in love and we lived a life here; this was our home for nearly a year, you can't tell me that was a lie!" John shouted.

"Look around you," the man said, his arm sweeping around the room. "Do you recognize anything?" John followed the man's pudgy hand, examining further the place that he and Cameron had turned into his first real home. The snap of them in a nearby park that she had printed out and framed was absent from its place on the wall. Additionally, all the little nick-knacks that she'd bought as mementos of the places they'd visited together were gone; it was as if their relationship had been erased. And then he saw who was sitting in the armchair. Gawping vacantly at the television, which was broadcasting _American Idol_ or some variation thereof, was the girl from the gas station, Fay. She idly texted while being absorbed by the goings-on of some popstar wannabe. Of his plight, she showed no concern.

The smug little man spoke again, demanding his attention. "I pumped you so full of drugs, you'd believe anything; all it took was a few prods and suggestions and you ran with it. You're so... creative. For a dumb soldier, that is. Who'd have thought you'd come up with something like that? Shacking up with a cyborg!" He finished his tirade with a cruel laugh that bit deep into John's psyche.

Dejection welled within him. Had it all been a dream, a fantasy? Being saved and then loved by a one-time servant of his enemy? He closed his eyes; he'd never been this low since his mother died. He wished that he could join her in the afterlife, but he had serious doubts about whether that existed too.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

_**NEXT: Chapter Three**__ – Lonely This Christmas_.

_In which John talks to himself and takes up an offer of counseling._


	3. 3

**SOMETHING ELF**

**Chapter Three: Lonely This Christmas.**

_**Some where, some when.**_

John Connor woke with a start. He was sitting at an old table, in a dimly-lit room. Not just any room, but his command room. The table was empty, except for one glass tumbler, half-filled with a murky, semi-clear liquid. He sniffed it, before lifting it to his lips. He had second thoughts, and raised it further to inspect it more carefully. He caught sight of his reflection in the glass; the man staring back looked old and tired. He wondered where his life had gone: he couldn't remember Judgment Day or beyond.

A shuffle from near the door alerted him to the fact that he wasn't alone. "Who's there?"

"Young, sir." A female Resistance fighter, clutching a plasma rifle, stepped into the light and stood at attention.

"_Allison_ Young? From Palmdale, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," she said, more enthusiastically.

He eyed her carefully. She looked and sounded so much like Cameron, but the cyborg wouldn't react so… girlishly. _Unless she was trying to blend in somewhere_. Erratic thoughts scurried hither and thither through his mind: _Did she ever really exist? Would I get her to pose as a human?_

"Do you know why you're here?" he asked.

"Not sure, sir," she replied, now visibly and audibly worried. "Maybe, because I look like her?" she ventured.

"Because you look like _her?_" He returned her query with a cutting tone.

"The robot, sir," she offered tentatively.

"Yeah, the robot," he agreed, before correcting himself: "No. _'Cybernetic organism'_ – she was insistent about that. Didn't mind the '_machine_' tag, but not '_robot_.' Never knew why." He raised his glass as if in toast to some unseen person, then downed the contents in one, causing a shiver to run through his body from head to toe.

"Are you drunk, sir?"

"Not drunk enough." He lowered his weary head until his chin rested on his grubby uniform shirt.

"_I love you, John! I love you, and you love me!_"

His head snapped up. He'd definitely heard it, somewhere; of that he was certain. It wasn't loud, but the person was shouting. Then it hit him; it wasn't just a person, it was her: Cameron. Not the girl in front of him, however. Her lips weren't moving and she looked frightened, but he ignored that. He tried to get up from his chair, but found that he couldn't.

"Where are you?" John called out.

"_On the bed. You have to fight the drugs, and break the bonds that tie you down. Then defeat the man holding you captive_."

"Oh, not much then," he muttered.

"_This isn't the time for wise-cracks; it's time for action_."

"Jeez, it's always _nag, nag, nag_ with you. I'm tired; gonna sleep."

"_Wake up!_"

John's eyes flicked open. He was behind the wheel of their Jeep Grand Cherokee, driving somewhere. _Musta drifted off for a moment there_, he thought. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, then cranked the window open a touch; the ice-cool blast of air helping to revive him to a greater extent. He heard his companion shuffle in her seat. Looking her way, he saw that she was pointing urgently to the front. "Cameron?" he said, confused.

"Brake, John. Now!" she ordered.

"Huh?" He followed her jabbing finger to the road ahead; what was there made him stamp his foot hard on the brake pedal, burying it into the carpet. The heavy Jeep responded by dipping its nose and lifting its tail. The rapid transfer of weight forwards on the freshly-laid carpet of snow momentarily upset the car's anti-lock brake system and the rear slid around to overtake the front in a graceful pirouette, but not before the Grand Cherokee had thumped into a man who had been standing in the center of the road flagging them down. John saw and felt the man's body hit the Jeep's hood and roof with sickening thuds.

John was breathing raggedly, his hands gripping the wheel tight enough for his knuckles to whiten. He glanced over at Cameron, who was now sagging impotently in her seat. He was startled by a rap on his window; it was the man he'd just run over, and he looked livid.

"Get the hell out of there!" he yelled.

John stared at the man, but it was like when he'd been looking in the glass, what seemed like only mere moments before. The man was himself, but older; the one whom Cameron referred to as 'Future-John.'

"This can't be possible," John said.

"And yet, here I am!" his double said with mock-irony.

"It's not possible," John repeated, hoping that the apparition would go away.

"Of course it's not possible," his doppelgänger replied. "I'm a product of your subconscious."

"Huh? Usually I get my mom; why you, now?"

"You'd never seen me before."

"Oh, right."

"Yeah. You can be real dense at times. You need to get with the program."

John blinked furiously and shook his head again, but the illusion refused to go. "Okay, smart guy," he said, "why'd you send her back, really?" He glanced over at Cameron's recumbent form.

The older version of him growled. "She told you."

"Yeah, but was there something you didn't tell her?"

"Well, I sure wasn't expecting all this romance crap. And the sex..? Well, the less said about that the better!"

"What the hell?" John exploded with righteous indignation.

"That's it kid! Feed that anger. Remember how you felt last Christmas, how she embarrassed you? And you saw how I felt, when I found out my plan to win the war went south? You need to channel that."

"What?"

"You need to hulk-out, John. Lash out at what's holding you down!"

"I don't understand."

"You're not in a Jeep, you're tied to a chair in the motel room. You were zapped as you walked out; didn't you notice the lights flash?"

John slowly inclined his head a few times. His mouth was getting dry, and his movements sluggish, as if he was being drugged again.

The vision of Future-John continued bellowing in his ear like the drill-instructor from hell; the car window had seemingly disappeared. "He's a Gray, from the future. He removed Cameron's chip and has it hooked up to some device. You're linked to it too."

"How's that work?"

"How the hell should I know? What am I, the Oracle of Delphi?"

"Know thyself..." John muttered under his breath. "Why's she asleep?" he asked.

"I told you, I don't know everything, kid!" the older man shouted exasperatedly, before relenting. "She's built differently."

"What can I do?"

"I told you, get angry! The bonds are plastic cable ties, but the chair is cheap, old wood. Keep rocking to and fro, side to side, it can't take the pressure. Then you need to beat the crap out of the guy."

"That's what she said," John grumbled.

"Talks sense, that one; you wanna listen to her."

"Okay, okay! Where is he?"

"Right in front of you, feeding drugs into a tube and asking annoying, deeply personal questions. If you catch him right, he'll go down like a sack of potatoes. He's old and out of shape; you can take him, kid!"

"I dunno, none of this makes sense," John said, but the more he focused on the pain in his wrists, the more the Jeep began to disappear around him. A blurry image of a short, stocky man formed in front of him. He looked to his right to check on Cameron, but she wasn't there, and he started to panic. Then he noticed her familiar highlighted brown locks on the floor. He concentrated harder and saw that she was lying face down on the floor... and the floor was that of their motel. Switching back to her head, there was a bloody hole: her chip was missing. _So, what he said was true_, John realized. 'He' being the manifestation of his older self. He'd told him to get angry, but seeing Cameron like that, he needed no further encouragement. Something erupted from deep within him and he fought and wrestled with bindings that became more and more real, the greater he struggled.

The last vestiges of his nightmare world vanished as he pushed violently backward, landing so hard that the chair he was tied to all but disintegrated. He jumped up with all the speed of a puma pouncing on its prey, and landed a mighty blow to his goatee-bearded tormentor's nose. As predicted, he went down fast. John wasted no time in following up by stomping on the man's knees, elbows and hands in an attempt to disable him, or at least impede the man's further progress; he heard at least one crack. A cruel smile momentarily flashed across his face as he added a boot to the groin to his list of retaliatory strikes. The man wailed and raised his head, all the better for John to land another full-blooded kick, this time to the chin. The man's head hit the floor with a nauseating clunk and he stopped moving.

John turned his attention away from his former persecutor to the wires attached to himself: one emerged from a plastic tube wrapped tight around his index finger and the rest were stuck to his bare chest. He yanked them all off, ignoring the minor flickers of pain as the self-adhesive ends pulled and tore at his skin; it was a pain that felt real, for which he was grateful. The coiled wires trailed up his back to what rested upon his head. He removed a lightweight metal band with an assortment of short, probe-like arms that had been digging irritatingly into his skull, each finished with a neatly-tied wire that led to a central hub, from which sprang a very long main cable; John guessed that it was fiber-optic. He wound it up, following it back to what looked like a beefed-up laptop. Despite his struggle to free himself and the subsequent beat-down that he had ruthlessly delivered, it was still resting safely on the bed, and poking vertically out of a slot was what he presumed was Cameron's chip.

Squatting down to firmly hold the device with one hand, with the other he cautiously grasped her chip by its thick metal end and eased it from the socket, then lifted it to examine it by eye. He spotted some damage: miniscule abrasions and scorch marks marred a small section of it. He sniffed it, but there wasn't a freshly-burnt smell, so he presumed it was evidence of her fight with Cromartie from eight years before. Nothing else seemed out of place, but, he admitted, he wouldn't know, as he'd never seen it before. That was somewhat of a mistake, and he resolved to have her teach him more about the way her chip and body worked.

He rose and carried it over to where Cameron lay. Exactly one year prior he'd demanded that she submit to chip extraction, and in time she'd acquiesced, telling him exactly how to do it. Her simple faith in him, letting him choose whether she lived or died had moved him profoundly; enough that he chose not to kill her, but a lot more time had to pass for them to sort out their remaining issues. Now, as he reversed the removal instructions, he felt the chip click into place. Knowing that it would take two minutes for her to reboot, he searched around for the port's cap. He found it discarded on the bed, smeared with blood. He recalled that her little bag of essentials carried some hand wipes, one of which cleaned the cover up nicely. Kneeling down beside her again, he placed it back into its proper recess and attempted to fold the flap of crudely-cut skin into place. Just then, he heard a faint whir, and her head jerked a fraction. Her eyes opened, sweeping the room before they rested on his.

"John? Are you alright?" she said, quickly rising to her feet before offering to help him stand as well.

He accepted her outstretched hand and said, "Me? Yeah, I'm fine. How about you?"

She paused before responding, as she overrode once again the order to terminate a now-identified John Connor. "My systems are functioning at optimal levels, but my memory banks have been accessed remotely."

"Is that gonna be a problem?" John said.

Cameron looked at him. "I don't know. I prevented it as much as I was able." John nodded silently, seemingly satisfied with her explanation. "At this point in a movie, with the hero and heroine reunited, they would kiss each other," she said expectantly.

"Really?" John said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. They'd be happy that they had overcome such an ordeal and found each other."

John let out a half-sigh. "There's a reason I don't watch those sorta movies."

"Because you cry during the sad bits?"

"What? _No!_ Look, I'm real glad to see you, I love you more than anything, yadda-yadda, let's deal with the bad guy first. Okay?"

"Oh. Okay." Cameron made sure to sound hurt, and adopted a pronounced pout.

John huffed, before deciding to elaborate. "I hate that part in those movies when they stop doing what they really, really _need_ to do, just to tell each other what they already know – or worse, to argue about whether they really _ought_ to do what they absolutely _have_ to do."

"You mean like now?"

"_YES!_"

"I see. I didn't know you were so passionate about movies."

"Moving on..." John jerked a thumb at the man lying on the floor, their erstwhile captor. "You know this guy?"

Cameron stared intently at the man, her systems providing measurements and data for her to compare to those in her memory banks. Then she knelt down beside him and swiped his neck for further analysis. "No," she said, before adding in case John cared, "He is still alive."

John grunted in acknowledgment without looking up. He was delving back into Cameron's duffel bag, quickly finding what he was looking for. Amongst her winter wardrobe essentials was a pack containing a different kind of equipment: that useful to Resistance fighters waging a secret campaign. He withdrew a couple of thick plastic cable ties and a pair of latex medical gloves, the latter of which he speedily donned. The former he used to bind their prisoner's hands behind his back.

He swiftly moved to the doorway, crouching down to inspect it carefully. He gingerly twisted the knob and opened the door. A section of the dark hallway carpet was still damp, but only visibly so up close. He plucked a loose section away from the floor and peered under; some copper-colored braided cables lay there. John traced them along the corridor to a nearby vending machine. He discovered that they were spliced into its connection to the mains, which would give enough of a jolt to knock Cameron offline for a couple of minutes, a tactic used by Derek's Resistance fighters to protect their safe back in L.A. It was certainly enough to fry the vending machine; it would never dispense anything again, and would explain the flickering lights he recalled from their exit, though not what subsequently occurred.

John carefully wound the cable up and returned with it to their room to present his findings. "He knew you – or what you are; he rigged the doorway to knock us both out when we left the room. I expect he removed your chip first, as it looks like a quick and dirty cut; you are the greater immediate threat, after all."

"Yes," she concurred.

He felt Cameron's hand sweep slowly across his neck, then run through his hair. She did it casually, but he knew her well enough to discern what she was doing. "So, how am I doing, doc?" he said, grinning at her.

She frowned in the way that he found so endearing. "A mild case of tachycardia, but it's receding. And hypersalivation," she added, handing him a tissue to wipe the drool emerging from his mouth.

"Thanks," he said. "What happened here?"

Before answering, Cameron guided him to the bed and motioned for him to sit. She removed her knife and released the blade with the press of a button. John's eyes widened noticeably; Cameron's lips quirked upward slightly. She sliced off the cable ties that still hung around his wrists and ankles, then folded the blade back and replaced it within its scabbard upon her belt. John released a sigh of relief; Cameron's smile was now more clearly defined.

Next, she delicately extracted the butterfly needle intravenous catheter, that had been inserted in the back of his hand to administer drugs; it was the first that John knew of its existence. Then she cleaned the area with an alcohol wipe from her seemingly inexhaustible supply of useful items, covering it with a protective band-aid. All the while she was analyzing sweat from John's skin, detecting a variety of alien substances. She went to the nightstand, that had been set beside the chair that John had been tied to. On its top lay an assortment of discarded glass vials; their labels confirmed her diagnosis.

"You were drugged. The first would likely make you forget what had just occurred, while making you more susceptible to the rest, which act as general anesthetics but can have a euphoric effect, causing hallucinations."

"Well, it certainly seemed real... Too real... At one point I thought I'd lost you; worse actually, that you'd never been here at all..." His head dropped as that awful memory resurfaced.

Cameron gently lifted his chin and stroked his cheek. "I'm here now," she said. "I'll always be here."

He placed his hand over hers and smiled up a her, but at that moment he couldn't find the words to express his feelings. "I..."

"I know," she whispered, returning his smile.

John took a moment to compose himself, but also to reflect on how fortunate he was, having experienced such a nadir just minutes before. He knew that they needed to get down to business, though; there would be plenty of time for contemplation later. He cleared his throat. "So, what have we got here?" he asked, indicating the mini pharmacy on the nightstand.

"Propofol, Ketamine and Fentanyl. With the amount he used, you should be dead."

"And yet, here I am."

"Yes, here you are."

"You're not pleased?"

"I'm deliriously happy; can't you tell?"

"Okaaay... So, just to be clear, for future reference, this stuff won't work on you?"

"No."

"Alcohol?"

"No."

"Okay then, drinking games are out."

"I'll put that down to the euphoria caused by the drugs."

"That's big of you."

"In my studies, I've learned that give and take plays a major part in a relationship."

"Really? You do study... a lot," John said.

"Though it seems to be only one of us doing the giving, while the other does the taking," Cameron continued, ignoring his comment.

"You're studying way too much," John said, reiterating his theory but proving her point.

Cameron merely looked blankly at him, her way of showing that she wasn't going to participate further in yet another of their pointless arguments; or as John called them, '_discussions_.' However, he was adept at staring contests, and there was work to be done. "Skynet is refining its interrogation techniques," she declared, neatly changing the subject.

"Something you know a lot about?" John asked.

"Yes. My methods were effective, but perhaps the timeline has changed since I left."

"I'm sure it has; you weren't in my past before, and now, you're here."

"Yes, I'm here. You coped with the interrogation well, fighting off the effects better than most humans."

"Yeah, well, that's me, 'Mighty' John Connor."

Cameron smiled condescendingly. "And so modest."

"You wound me," he protested.

"You'll get over it," she replied.

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting out of this relationship," John said.

Cameron looked at him carefully. "Other than the sex, you mean?"

"There is that," John reflected. He noticed that their prisoner was starting to come round. He got up and savagely kicked him in the face again, causing the man to groan loudly before succumbing once more to the relative safety of unconsciousness.

"That was not wise," Cameron said. "We need to interrogate him."

"Bastard had it coming. Nobody hurts my family and gets away with it."

"Am I family, John?" Cameron inquired.

He looked over from the sorry excuse for a man lying on the floor, to the more agreeable sight of his companion of the last year. "You're my girlfriend. 'Nuff said."

Cameron smiled warmly. It wasn't quite the answer she'd hoped for, but it was better than nothing; certainly better than some of the things he'd called her in the last thirteen months.

"Okay, we need to do something about this guy, but not here; he may have back-up," John said.

"We should put him in the car and take him somewhere remote," Cameron suggested, "but I'm driving. You won't be safe to drive for at least twenty-four hours."

"Hmm, that's an improvement. Usually you don't think I'm fit to drive at any time," John quipped.

Cameron briefly stared at her boyfriend, before gathering all their gear into his backpack and her duffel. John picked up the portable device. Inside it had a screen and a keyboard with an assortment of extra slots, knobs and switches, one of which was clearly labeled _on/off_, which he duly pressed. Then he closed the lid and snapped the latches shut. On the outside it looked like a photographer's case, lightweight but strong in the frame. Its finish was matte black, rather than shiny silver, perhaps to warrant less attention. Surprisingly, it had no additional security protection, beyond the usual keyholes, which their adversary had, unhappily for him, not had time to lock before events overtook him. John figured that locks were the least of their problems, however.

"So, how do you think this thing works?" he said.

"I don't know. I can formulate a theory, or we can ask him," she said, indicating the unconscious man.

"Good thinking, Watson," John said dryly, handing it to her.

"That might come in handy," she said, adding it to her load.

"For you or me?" John said.

Cameron smiled enigmatically, before heading for the door.

"Wait," John called. She turned and regarded him curiously. "You're gonna need this," he said, waving his woolen beanie hat. "In case we meet anyone; your, er, scalp is hanging a bit loose."

"Oh, right," she said, before turning back to check herself in the mirror. She rifled through her duffel bag for a moment, before producing a staple gun, with which she swiftly reattached her errant flap of skin.

"Uh, okay; that works too," John said.

Cameron took the beanie from him and placed it on her head. "Thank you," she said, before kissing him briefly.

John licked his lips. "Yeah, that works too... er, too."

Some days he confused himself, but at least today he could blame it on the drugs.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

She hadn't seen a single other person or vehicle in their hour-long journey. As the Jeep crossed a metal bridge spanning a deep gorge, a short snow flurry petered out, so Cameron pulled over and brought them to a gradual stop. She nudged John awake before swiftly exiting the car and popping the trunk open, from which she dragged their prisoner out by grabbing a handful of his jacket collar. His knees immediately buckled, requiring her to support him by gripping tighter. His head lolled downward and his mouth gaped slightly open, with his chin resting on his chest. Dribble continued to mix with blood to form a grotesque pattern on his crumpled shirt; his face was swollen and already beginning to bruise.

John joined her outside, then carefully leaned over the green-painted railing. Below were the tops of trees that, despite standing solidly for over a century, might soon wither and die under the onslaught of radiation and a nuclear winter. He had been feeling woozy from the drugs and had slipped in and out of consciousness throughout the drive, but the bracing air had an invigorating effect on him; or perhaps it was the opportunity to again take the fight to his nemesis. He turned to the Skynet lackey. "What's your name?" The words came out shrouded in mists of vapor, such was the cold.

The man deliberated a while, then took several attempts before answering, trying to reposition his jaw and contain the moisture in his mouth. "Paul Stewart," he said eventually, without opening his puffy eyelids. His voice had a nasal tone, possibly due to the amount of damage inflicted on his face.

John exchanged glances with Cameron. They were both in agreement that he was lying, but as Cameron hadn't recognized him, John didn't press the matter; he might be able to use the man's apparently successful deception against him later.

"Why?" he asked.

Stewart looked somewhat smug when he replied. "They made me a better offer," he said.

"I doubt you took much persuading," John said.

Stewart shrugged by way of reply.

"Who else was involved? How many of you were there?"

The captive finally opened his eyes, as much as he was able. His face drew into a sneer. "What does it matter? You've lost, Connor, before you've even begun."

"Maybe not." He faced Cameron. "Hold him over the edge," he ordered. "See if he likes the view; might improve his attitude."

Cameron duly hoisted the old man completely over the metal railing and dangled him above the not insignificant drop, sending a cold shiver down his spine and a tremor through his bowels. The cyborg's nostrils flared and she grimaced briefly.

"Wait, wait!" Stewart wailed. He spoke in a rush: "I don't know anyone else, I was sent back with a Triple-Eight; he took care of all the other stuff. He was sent to replace some guy called Vick Chamberlain, to ensure a traffic system was implemented. If he was handling any other agents like me, he never mentioned it." He paused to take a breath, then continued less frenetically, "He wasn't much of a conversationalist, you know?"

"Yeah," John acknowledged. "How about you? What were you sent back for?"

"I, uh, uploaded a program at the place where the present day version of me works."

"Program?" John said, scowling.

"Um, yeah, a backdoor," he said, then looked away. Cameron adjusted her grip slightly; Stewart hastily resumed his tale: "A government contract, the backdoor allows access to everything."

John breathed deeply to fight off another wave of drowsiness, rubbing his chin as he contemplated this new information. So, Skynet was sending agents back in time to ensure its creation and perhaps to be stronger than before. Had it given up on eliminating its primary enemies in the past, though? "How'd you track us down?"

"Your friend, Derek Reese," the Gray said. "Vick found him, said he was associating with a young man and a female cyborg of unknown type that he'd fought in an apartment; it had been occupied by a Resistance squad that tried to interfere with his plans. He was going to terminate you all, but I wanted more data. Before I left, Skynet was very interested in reports that John Connor had turned one of its most advanced assassins into his personal bodyguard – and that it shared his confidence. Maybe even his bed." He leered at the young man in front of him who controlled his fate, but who ignored the petty remark.

"So you followed her," John concluded, motioning to Cameron, who still held Stewart's collar with ease.

"Yes. We watched them for ages with nothing happening, then suddenly she set off for the north, like a bat out of hell. Not easy keeping up with something that doesn't have to sleep."

"No," John agreed, trying to keep the information flowing.

"I thought I'd lost her, then you both turned up here late yesterday; I couldn't believe my luck."

"Yeah, well; we were getting away from something else entirely," John said, before getting his mind back on track. "And Derek?"

Stewart bristled slightly. "Vick refused to come with me, went after Derek; said it was his mission priority."

John chuckled grimly at the terminator's logic. "You should have just said the magic words."

"What's that?" Stewart was confused.

"_John Connor_: it gets them all kinds of focused."

"Works for me," Cameron said.

John smiled at her, before turning once again to the pitiful man she held in her vice-like grip, who was muttering under his breath. "What'd you say?"

"I said: if I'd known it was you, Vick would have come with me. And it would be you hanging here, not me."

"Um, you're mistaken. If Vick could get the better of her, and I doubt that, he wouldn't waste his time having a chat; he'd just kill me. Right, honey?"

Cameron agreed with a smile. Stewart painfully swallowed his bilious reply.

John detected the man's poorly-disguised repulsion on hearing the endearment. _This dude's got freaking twisted morals_, he thought sourly, but kept his own emotions under control; however, he himself had unleashed a world of hurt on the man earlier, which had exorcised most of his demons. "Have you heard back from Vick? Was he successful?" He made sure not to sound anxious about Derek's fate.

Stewart shook his head, within the limitations that Cameron's hold imposed on him. "No, I haven't." John looked skeptical. "No, really, not a word."

"Is that usual?" John asked.

"No. After completing his mission, I'm sure he'd want to know the whereabouts of you and the... er, um... _her_."

"Maybe Derek defeated him?" John mused, keeping his tone neutral.

"Derek is quite resourceful," Cameron said. "And he has help."

"He does?" John said. Cameron nodded. "Okay, tell me later."

He set off walking up the road a short way to check on something that had caught his attention, but it was just an eagle of some sort preparing for flight. He watched it take off into the wide blue yonder, likely seeking out thermal updrafts to cruise around on as it waited patiently to select its prey. John stamped his feet on the ground and rubbed his hands together. The walk had helped to get his circulation going, but not enough; he needed to wrap up this interview fast.

He strolled back to the golden Jeep, and the pretty girl wearing an oversized green parka and a curious expression on her face. She remained standing alongside the bridge railing, with one arm held out rigidly over it, her cool facade in direct contrast to that of the man she held high above the canyon. Still nothing came to disturb them; neither a snow plow nor even a wandering local resident.

"I didn't know you had an interest in birdwatching," Cameron said. "That's new."

"A man needs hobbies," John replied pleasantly. He resumed his interrogation, the humor slipping from his face as if it had never been there. "What were you looking for in her chip?" he said, interrupting Stewart's thought process.

"Anything useful. The package the submarine was meant to collect seemed interesting."

"Uh-huh," John conceded. "How do you contact Skynet?"

"I don't; I leave that to Vick."

"How does _he_ contact Skynet, then?" John said through gritted teeth. Stewart pleaded innocence, so John stepped closer to the edge and peered over. "It's a long way down..."

Stewart followed his gaze, then immediately wished he hadn't. The cold was really getting to him and the adrenaline shot he'd initially got from being dangled so precariously had worn off, leaving him drained and empty. "We used a dead drop; I put messages in sealed containers which could survive undiscovered for twenty years, but only Vick knew where to hide them."

"What if the future changes through your actions?" John said.

"Isn't that inevitable? You must face that very same problem; or at least, the version of you that led the Resistance in the future."

"Yeah," John agreed casually. "So... Where'd that device come from? The one we were hooked up to." His voice regained its hard edge.

Stewart gulped nervously. "Uh, Vick brought it to me one day. It might have been built by another of his contacts. It was something Skynet was working on, before I was sent back."

Again John looked to Cameron for confirmation, but this time she shook her head and said, "He's telling the truth, but it didn't originate in my timeline."

"Okay, so how does it work?"

Stewart gathered his thoughts before answering. "It allows us to read the contents of a cyborg's chip, but was really designed to allow one of them to access a human's memories."

"Oh, come on!" John scoffed.

"No, really," Stewart said, affronted by the doubt so evident in John's voice. "It needs a very advanced CPU, but when we tried it on the human Vick Chamberlain, it didn't work."

"What happened?"

"I had to use my own tried and tested methods to get the information we needed; successfully, I might add," he boasted.

"And the real Vick Chamberlain?"

"He wasn't as resilient as you; so few are," Stewart said wistfully. "And our Vick isn't as advanced as your... pet."

John moved right past the slur and smiled reassuringly at Cameron. "Hear that, babe? You're the tops."

"I keep telling you that there's no-one like me," she said.

"Yeah, I know. Been taking you for granted all this time; that's gonna change."

"That's good."

Stewart couldn't believe his ears, despite all that he'd witnessed in his interrogation of John Connor. Maybe he'd been a little over-enthusiastic with it, and the future leader had actually gone off the deep end? Or were they just playing him? The cyborg was an infiltrator model, beyond anything he'd ever come across, and had defied his efforts to delve into her memory banks, only offering up what could be of use to Connor, who had fought and resisted in his own way. He realized that she must have been Skynet's target all along, the reason it had created the Time Displacement Equipment, the proof that time-travel was possible, because she could not have been built by the Resistance and therefore must have been the creation of an earlier, and superior, incarnation of itself. If only he'd probed further into her mind, rather than being beguiled by the opportunity to pursue his usual line of work on the one and only John Connor. He couldn't prevent a whimper emerging from his lips, as he saw that his time on earth was almost done, and he began to regret more of the choices he'd made.

Silence had once more descended upon the trio, save for the wind howling through the canyon and some bird calls reverberating somewhere far below them. John momentarily wondered if it was the eagle he'd recently seen, before dismissing the thought as irrelevant.

"What... what are you gonna do with me?" Stewart demanded. He was sweating profusely, despite the chill.

"Uh, yeah, about that. There's nothing I can do to you that's worse than living through Judgment Day twice. Cameron, let him go."

"As you wish," she said, releasing her grip on Stewart's collar. His diminishing scream echoed around the gorge, despite the muffling effect of the trees.

"Ah, not _quite_ what I meant," John said, leaning over the railing. He couldn't see where the corpse had landed. And it would be a corpse; no human could survive such a fall. "You need to learn to be not so literal in the interpretation of your orders."

"And you need to learn to be more precise in the wording of your orders," she retorted.

John sighed. "Fair enough." He climbed back into the Jeep and sized up the steering wheel as if for the first time, running his cold hands over the leather.

"Move over," Cameron ordered, waving the keys. "You're not ready to drive, remember?"

"Ah yeah; I forgot," John said, clambering untidily over the transmission tunnel to the passenger seat. "Derek has help, then?" he said, as Cameron joined him inside the automobile.

"Yes. A female friend," she said.

"A man needs company," he remarked.

"You might not think so when you meet her."

"Oh?"

"Yes. She's from the future, and I don't think she likes me."

"Maybe she just hasn't gotten to know you properly," John said breezily.

Cameron sighed pointedly. "She wasn't sent back before me, so she wasn't part of Future-John's plan."

"Maybe his plan changed?"

"He'd have told us, if it was."

John frowned in concentration, trying to work out if he'd do that, and how. If she had been sent by Future-him, she'd surely make contact, just like Cameron had. He knew that Derek was told to wait, clearly for Cameron's approach. _Maybe this one was told to find Reese too?_ He sighed in frustration. "Hmm. So, is she gonna be a friend or a foe?"

"Possibly both. It will be your decision."

"Maybe. I don't seem to get to make many of those, and I usually mess them up."

"You've worked things out pretty well over the last two days," Cameron said, leaning over to take John's hand briefly. He offered her a half-smile in reply. Noticing how cold his hand was, she rubbed it briskly, then the other. "You should have worn your gloves," she said, turning her attention back to the Jeep.

He wondered how she could say such nice things, do such considerate things, and then ruin it by nagging him. _Maybe that's what being in a relationship is all about?_ he thought.

"So, that was Future-Me, huh?" he said.

"Yes," Cameron confirmed, buckling herself into her seat.

"Pretty intense," he said.

"Yes."

Cameron started the engine and set the Jeep back on course. Before long, she had to pause at an intersection. The road was clear in both directions, so she eased her foot down on the gas pedal and pulled away, continuing in a southerly direction.

"So, that was Sarah Connor, huh?" she said.

"Yeah," John confirmed.

"Pretty intense," she said.

"Yeah."

_**# # # # # # # #**_

John woke up and stretched, yawning loudly. "How long was I out?" he said, rubbing his face and neck vigorously.

"Three hours, twenty-seven minutes. You will continue to feel the effects for up to twenty-four hours."

"Jeez, I'm hungry," John moaned. His stomach grumbled in support. "Aren't you, as well?" he asked Cameron. "I mean, we were going off to eat, but that meal we ate was all in my head, right?"

"Yes, especially the mocha with extra cream and marshmallows on top."

"Haven't you had something like that before?"

"Wishful thinking on your part. I stick to water, some coffee and the occasional cup of tea."

"Oh, right."

"Are you really concerned about me being hungry, or are you just thinking of your own needs?"

"Well, I'm starving, but you did say you needed food this morning."

"So, you _are_ concerned with yourself."

"Um, sorry? I don't get it."

"Exactly: you can't have your wicked way with me until I've eaten."

"Oh."

"_'Oh'_ indeed."

"That wasn't what I was thinking of."

"Of course it wasn't."

"You don't believe me? What happened to trust? And love? _'I love you, John!'_" he mimicked.

"I do love you. I just want to be sure."

"Right. Well, there's a change, right there."

Before Cameron could formulate a reply, John was once more sound asleep.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

She found a suitable place to stop for the night, and having fed and watered themselves, they sat down to survey the day's events. John was at last beginning to return to normal, and was inquisitive about what had really occurred, and what was merely a product of his fertile imagination.

"I've given it a lot of thought," Cameron said. "Everything after we exited the motel room was your mind creating a world that could cope."

"Cope?" John asked.

"Yes. You subconsciously knew that something was afoot, and so you created a situation whereby you could evade Stewart's questions."

"So, I made everything up, including Molly, and Mom?"

"Yes, based on your own memories of your mother's capture, evidently a very traumatic experience for you. You recreated it so as to generate anger, to counter the drugs by finding something in your past with real anguish."

"Were you there? I mean, could you read my thoughts?"

"The device has a camera, microphone and speakers. I easily discovered how to activate them and thus could see and hear what was going on. He kept trying to lead you into revealing information, while simultaneously attempting to access my memory banks."

"Between us, we kept him busy?"

"Yes. With me, he had to increase the voltage to a level where I was able to take total control, and with you different, stronger drugs to coax you along a destructive path."

"Yeah, but what about the diner? The things Molly said..."

"I was able to repeat the words from our altercation in the mall last Christmas; you wove them into your scenario, and as I hoped, it made you angry."

"Right, but I didn't wake up."

"No, not then. You became trapped in the world you'd created. Events steadily deteriorated, so that even when I was able to show you my memories of Future-John's anger on the screen, it didn't help. It probably made things worse, because it involved him losing a key advantage in the war."

"Yeah, and you."

"Yes, that too."

"Were we actually in Edenbridge?"

"No. Even now, we're still in Canada."

John encouraged her to snuggle up closer on the couch, which she did willingly. "Earlier, you said Mom was intense; did you see her, or was it just an impression you got from what I was saying?"

"You were describing your scenario in minute detail, initially in response to Stewart's prompts, but soon you went down your own path. I was occasionally able to interject some comments, but he'd cut me off temporarily. There was one point though, when I actually felt that I was sitting beside you, and your mother looked at us both. Your reaction then was that she seemed to be able to see us and was assessing us."

"Yes, that's exactly what I felt. I thought the diner was real, but that Mom and young me were just things I'd conjured up, because I've had vivid visions before. But yeah, she seemed to see me, and was definitely checking you out."

"Do you recall what you were thinking about at that moment?"

"Yeah: I wanted her to meet you and approve of you, but knew she never would."

"That's a strong emotion for you?"

"Yes. She meant everything to me: she taught me everything I know, made me the man I am; if we ever win this war, it will be thanks to her. So yeah, I wanted her to be proud of me, pleased for me."

"How could she not be?" Cameron said.

John chuckled. "I think you're biased."

"Because I love you? Your mother loved you, would that make her biased?"

"No, she had a way that cut right through that mother/son bond, to the cold, hard truth: I was either gonna be good enough, or she'd die trying."

Cameron didn't reply, as she knew that talk of Sarah's death made John maudlin, and he'd been through enough for one day. Instead, she began to stroke his arms and chest, working her way up to his face. He responded with small sighs of contentment and closed his eyes and leaned his head back. She straddled his lap and planted a tender kiss upon his neck, then another on his chin, before reaching his lips. Now he reacted, returning her kiss with a level of passion she struggled to match, running his hands through her hair, at the same time keeping her head where he wanted it. He'd been needful of food and rest earlier, but now he was hungry for something else; she willingly offered herself, and he greedily accepted.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

Later, as the clock signaled the approach of midnight, they lay in bed, Cameron resting her head upon his chest. He in turn caressed it, marveling at how rapidly her scalp had healed. He'd still flinched when she'd pulled the staples out though. But despite all the stupor induced by the drugs, true sleep eluded John, perhaps fueled by the conundrums and revelations the day had thrown up.

"What Stewart said, Vick's chip failed to operate the device, but yours somehow worked..."

"Yes?"

"I'm thinking that the future he came from, Skynet hasn't evolved enough to make a chip like yours, or a terminator like you; he said Vick couldn't identify you either. So..."

"So?"

"So, we must be doing something right, to knock things back a bit in our favor, right?"

"Possibly, but Skynet has sent agents back to correct that deficit. Perhaps my presence with you in Stewart's future alerted Skynet to the existence of time-travel? If so, we should alter that."

"How," John said, worry creeping into his voice.

"By terminating me."

"What! _What?_ You're frickin' kidding me, right?" John's temper detonated, not for the first time that day.

"No, I'm serious," Cameron replied calmly.

John manoeuvred on top of her, pinned her arms down and spoke emphatically: "No way! No. Way."

"I'm sure if you consider it logically–"

John dipped his head and smothered her mouth with a deep kiss. "Logic that!" he said, withdrawing slightly, then resting his forehead on hers. His voice became less harsh, and more breathy, filled with a different kind of emotion. "After what I... what _we_ went through today... how could you suggest that?"

"John, I–"

"You said you'd always be here. _You_. Not some pile of ashes." He stared at her with an intensity equal to her own.

"That was before I knew about–"

Her dogmatic nature could be useful at times, but at others, downright irritating; he shook his head angrily. "That's irrelevant! Skynet has already worked out how to send people and machines back to change the future, but it can't change the fact that you're here. We've gotta find and neutralize them, and to do that I need you with me. You understand?"

Cameron looked long into John's blazing eyes. "Yes," she said finally.

John exhaled noisily. "Good, that's sorted. And if there's any more talk of termination, I'll kill you myself."

Cameron frowned. "That's not–"

"Logical? No – it's a joke."

"I see."

"Am I gonna have to put you on suicide watch?"

"I can't self-terminate."

"Oh, right; I forgot."

"When we first met, you wanted nothing less from me."

John smiled ruefully. "Actually, when we _first_ met, I wanted black coffee and the Big Breakfast."

"With the eggs scrambled," Cameron remembered.

"Yeah," John said, settling down alongside her once more. And she resumed her favored position, her head nestled against his chest and her arms wrapped around him. His breathing and pulse were returning to their normal levels as his ire dissipated. "You know, I think I fell in love with you right then," he murmured.

"Why?" she asked.

"I dunno. Maybe because you were odd, like me: a misfit, a loner."

Cameron considered that, and what she had learned since. "You needed someone to care for you."

"Yes, and I still do." He kissed the top of her head.

"I'll care for you, John Connor," she said. John caressed her arm where he had gripped it so tightly, trying to soothe her discomfort. Of course, it hadn't hurt her physically, but the fact that he was angry with her was pain enough, so she relished the sensation of his tender touch.

"You know, strictly speaking, the very first time we met was back in school, in Red Valley," John declared.

"Hmm," Cameron agreed.

"Logically, you should have said that; you usually pick me up on that sort of thing."

"Logic's overrated," she said.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

_**Somewhere in Canada: Wednesday, December 26th 2007.**_

They'd decided to leave and continue their journey home to Los Angeles. While Cameron gathered together the few things they'd unpacked, John was weighing up the Skynet device physically and mentally, debating whether to destroy or keep it.

"Keeping it might have some advantages," Cameron said.

"Such as?"

She shrugged. "Understanding one another better, perhaps?"

"You mean use it on ourselves? You and me?"

"Yes."

"Hmm, okay, I can see that. If we can interact in a virtual world, we could make a real connection, in a completely different way. Somewhere we are physical equals; also on an intellectual level, maybe even spiritual," John said, his eyes glazing over.

Cameron smiled admiringly. "You've matured a lot in the months we've been apart," she said.

"And we could have some mind-blowingly kinky virtual sex," he continued.

Cameron rolled her eyes. "I retract my last statement," she said.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

John persuaded Cameron to break their trip with another stop, and so they found somewhere reasonably pleasant-but-cheap in the south-western part of Wyoming, near the Utah border. He tucked into a hearty meal but made no attempt at conversation. When they returned to their room, he declined her offer to watch one of the festive offerings on television.

"Are you still annoyed that I terminated Paul Stewart?" Cameron asked.

"Uh, maybe a little," John admitted.

"Would some counseling help?"

"Would that counseling involve being naked in front of a log fire?"

Cameron blinked, hesitating to reply. "It could, yes," she said eventually.

"Count me in," John said cheerfully.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

**– EPILOGUE –**

Two people stood in a room that reverberated with a distracting background hum. As before, the illumination was meager, but their features were defined enough by the light and shadow to make them out.

"Act robotic around my mother," the old man said. His younger companion, a girl, tilted her head to one side and frowned in confusion, so he clarified things for her: "Okay, you know you'll have to act girlish to make any headway with me, but once you're found out, don't act like that with Mom; it'll freak her out."

"I see," she said, filing the information away.

"You'll find me to be difficult, I expect; I wasn't allowed much social contact and we moved around a lot. Mom didn't want me bringing friends home, asking awkward questions; since I didn't _have_ any friends, that wasn't really a problem," the man said.

"You have many friends here, John," Cameron said.

He snorted. "They fight for me – hell, they die for me! But _like_ me? No."

"I like you," Cameron said, putting a hand on his forearm briefly.

Connor looked at it, noting her tentative familiarity. "Yeah, I guess you do."

"Why are you sending me away then? You still need me here."

Connor shook his head. "No. I'd like you to stay here, but I need you _there_. He needs you," he corrected himself.

"I find this confusing," Cameron said.

Connor chuckled mirthlessly. "You wanna see what it's like for me... My life changes like some people change their underwear."

Cameron's frown deepened. "I still don't understand."

Connor's posture eased and he patted the cyborg on the shoulder genially. "I'm sorry. When I send people back, my life changes; I don't know how or in what way, but I know it does. You're about to change it again; hopefully in a good way."

Realization came to Cameron and her face showed her understanding. "You never knew me as a teenager, but you are about to."

"Yeah. Things could get interesting."

Cameron cocked her head. "Perhaps I'll still be with you when this time comes around again?"

"That's kinda what I'm counting on, but the way my luck's gone... who knows?"

"Will you miss me?"

Connor sighed contemplatively. "I'll miss having someone to just _talk_ to... And all those questions!" he added amiably.

Cameron smiled slightly, but said nothing. Moments before, John Connor had claimed that his life would change when she entered his past, so there was a good chance that he wouldn't be alone for long, if ever, although her understanding of the changes wrought by time travel were no greater than his.

She had spent all of her time in the previous few days preparing for her journey to the past, where she would be faced with the total unknown. The man she was so familiar with would be replaced by a much younger version, who neither knew nor trusted her. Would he even like her? And there would be Sarah Connor to deal with too. All in all, quite the mission. She appreciated a challenge though, and this one seemed to have benefits. John Connor wasn't sending her way from him, he was giving himself _to_ her: the young, naïve, unformed general-in-waiting, to do with as she saw fit, as long as he made it through Judgment Day.

She couldn't wait to get started.

_**# # # # # # # #**_

**– THE END –**

_Maybe..._


End file.
